If you don't have an address receiving mail at home or work, giving directions to visitors, or just finding destinations is difficult – if not impossible. These problems affect more than half the people living on Earth due to the lack of named roads and house numbers.

We developed a way to express the location of your home or work, wherever they are, to anyone, with just a short address, and made it so anyone anywhere can use them for anything. For free. For ever. They are called plus codes, and they look like 6FR5GH5W+5F. If that's too long to remember, you can just use the bold section in combination with a nearby town or city, like this: GH5W+5F Lekki.

You can discover your code using the website plus.codes, or simply drop a pin in Google Maps (Android, iOS, and soon on desktop) and view the pin info to see the location’s plus code. If someone tells you their code, you can search for it on the website plus.codes, or in Google Maps, and immediately see exactly where to go.

People can use them to tell visitors where to go, small businesses can use it on business cards, ads or web sites so that customers can find them, delivery companies could use them to improve their delivery times and efficiency, and power and water companies could use them to locate equipment.

Searching for a plus code and finding a location on Google Maps.

Somewhere we are currently using these is Cape Verde. More than 90 percent of roads in Cape Verde don’t have names, Correios de Cabo Verde (Cape Verde postal authority) launched the Morada Certa campaign (Right Address campaign), a national initiative to give local residents addresses to enable mail delivery. This summer, Correios de Cabo Verde and Google worked together so that the people of Cape Verde could receive postal mail for the very first time.

More than 90 percent of streets in Cape Verde don't have a name, making postal deliveries

and other services difficult

With our help, Correios de Cabo Verde integrated plus codes into their website. In four simple steps, Cape Verde residents can find the plus code associated with their workplace or residence and link it to their postal identification to start receiving mail.

Locating a plus code is easy as well. In addition to using the plus.codes website or Google Maps, Cape Verde residents can use the Correios de Cabo Verde website to locate a code they have been given.

Discovering plus codes on the Correios de Cabo Verde website

Even in today’s digital age, more than 50 percent of urban dwellers live on an unnamed street and don't have an address (World Bank). The work of Correios de Cabo Verde shows how easy it can be to integrate plus codes to improve postal services. With an address residents can receive mail at their homes, city authorities can plan and provide services, businesses can deliver goods, emergency services can dispatch personnel, and utility problems with water or electricity can be located and fixed faster.

Plus codes is powered by Open Location Code,an open source technology, that any organization can use for free. By simplifying the cost of identifying and registering addresses we hope to help resolve the challenges of urbanization and increase efficient mobility of people and goods across Africa and all over the world. If you work with or know of an organization that could benefit from Open Location Code technology, please contact olc_enquiry@google.com. To find out more about plus codes, visit plus.codes.

Tonight, we hosted the YouTube Sub-Sahara Africa Creator Awards, to celebrate the incredible creativity and talent on YouTube from across the continent.

And what a night it was! Top artists Vanessa Mdee and Timaya shared the stage with some leading African YouTube stars including Theodora Lee, Sisi Yemmie and Tofo Tofo! Grant Hinds and ‘An African City’ star, Maame Adjei hosted the festivities, with awards for 22 categories including the channel in each country with the most subscribers. We also celebrated a huge milestone for Yellow Brick Cinema, who were awarded the international Gold Play Button Award for hitting 1 million subscribers.

YouTube is about the opportunity for people to express themselves. Creators across Africa are using YouTube to find their voice, connect with audiences around the world and build channels while earning revenue from it. The number of hours of video content in Africa being uploaded has doubled year over year for the past two years. And the audience has grown with it. Watchtime on mobile phones is growing 120% year over year.

The cost of data and the processing speed of many phones in Africa often make it challenging to enjoy watching video online. A year ago we rolled out YouTube Offline, which helps you enjoy a smooth, buffer-free version of YouTube during periods of low to no connectivity. And we're working on more ways to help you deal with data cost and connectivity difficulties. Tonight was about celebrating the award winners and creators you love, and all those who use YouTube to express themselves and who give a voice to Africa’s stories. Congratulations for telling it boldly!

Six months ago, when we announced our commitment to train 1 million Africans on digital skills within a year, we knew it was going to be a tough task. People across Africa are thirsty to explore how to take better advantage of the internet and the opportunities it offers; but frameworks that provide digital skills training on the continent are few and far between.

Fast forward 6 months, and we’re proud to update that we’ve reached the halfway mark. Over 500,000 Africans have received training that will enable them to build businesses, create jobs and boost economic growth across the continent.

For people who are unable to attend face-to-face training sessions and who want to acquire digital skills in their own time from their own phone or computer, we’re launching a new Digital Skills Africa online portal. The portal contains 89 online lessons on a wide range of digital subjects including web analytics, social media management and mobile marketing. Available in English and French and in the near future in Portuguese, we hope the portal will enable more people in more African countries to make the most of the web. The training is available to anyone, and people who complete the program will receive a Certificate of Online Proficiency.

One of our trainees, Esalako Hillary from Nairobi, signed up for the digital skills program to learn how to use online tools to promote his new company Entrevene Africa - a social enterprise that encourages entrepreneurship amongst university students. After the training he realized that, in addition to promoting his company, he could also offer a digital marketing service as an additional offering to his clients. Four months later, and Esalako and his team have expanded their business and grown their revenues by over 60%.

Vanessa Morris, a Ghanaian nursing graduate based in Nigeria had never heard about the term ‘digital marketing’ before she was invited to one of the digital skills courses by a friend. She decided to pursue a career in digital marketing after the training, and has since taken up a social media manager role with a top production company in Nigeria. In Vanessa’s words, “the best thing about this is that I now earn a lot more money doing a job that I really love.”

A recent Digital Skills training session at City Hall in Johannesburg, S. Africa

Helping people in Africa take advantage of the web is a task for everyone, and we’re very grateful to the many partners and collaborators that have given their support and played important roles in helping to get the program this far. We hope that through this and similar programs, Africans will begin to reap greater benefits from the internet.

Today, we’re excited to launch YouTube Kids in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe! YouTube Kids is an app built with parents and children in mind that makes it easier for kids to find videos on topics they want to explore. YouTube Kids has already been downloaded tens of millions of times by families who rate it among the top kids apps available. Family-friendly content from creators around the world is now available to download for free on Google Play and the App Store. Here are some of the key features:

Bright and playful designYour 4-year-old may already be a swiping expert, but the app’s design makes it even easier for little fingers to navigate with larger images and bold icons. And we’ve built in voice search so that even if your child can’t spell or type, they can still find videos of things they’re curious about.Family-focused contentWe’ve built the YouTube Kids app to be a more family-friendly experience than YouTube, a place for kids to explore their imagination and curiosity. You can browse channels and playlists in four categories: Shows, Music, Learning and Explore. Your favorite shows like LittleBabyBum, The ChuChuTV, Sockeye Media and Peppa Pig are in YouTube Kids. You’ll also find popular content from beloved African creators too.

Parental controlsWe’ve built options into the app that help you control the experience for your kids and put parents in the driving seat.

Learn how the app works: When parents open YouTube Kids, they learn upfront how our systems choose and recommend content and how to flag videos. We always try to make the videos available in the app family-friendly, but no system is perfect. So if you ever find a video you’re concerned about, please flag it. This helps make YouTube Kids better for everyone.

Search settings: We’ll also prompt you to make a choice about how broadly you want your child to explore - turn search on to access millions of family-friendly videos, or turn search off to restrict your child’s experience to a more limited set. Either way, parents decide the right experience for their family from the get-go.

Timer: Let the app be the bad guy with a built-in timer that lets you limit kids’ screen time. The app alerts your child when the session is over, so you don’t have to. (You’re welcome.)

Sound settings: Sometimes you need a little peace and quiet! You have an option to turn off background music and sound effects, so your kids can keep watching while you catch a breath.

Customize your passcode: We’ve also heard some parents prefer a personal passcode, rather than a spelled-out code, so we’ve added this option to access parental controls.

Logged out experience: The app is currently a signed-out experience with no ties to an account. We’ve also removed all features that are linked to an account like uploading, sharing, liking, etc.

We’re excited to bring YouTube Kids to parts of Africa, and look forward to your ideas too so that we can better help your family explore, learn and sing along. From our family to yours, happy exploring!

Whether it’s planning a night out or just catching up, we all rely on messaging to stay in touch with friends and loved ones. But too often we have to hit pause on our conversations — whether it’s to check the status of a flight or look up that new restaurant. So we created a messaging app that helps you keep your conversation going, by providing assistance when you need it.

Today, we’re releasing Google Allo, a new smart messaging app for Android and iOS that helps you say more and do more right in your chats. Google Allo can help you make plans, find information, and express yourself more easily in chat. And the more you use it, the more it improves over time.

Respond quickly with Smart Reply

Google Allo makes it easier for you to respond quickly and keep the conversation going, even when you’re on the go. With Smart Reply, you can respond to messages with just a tap, so you can send a quick “yup” in response to a friend asking “Are you on your way?” Smart Reply will also suggest responses for photos. If your friend sends you a photo of their pet, you might see Smart Reply suggestions like “aww cute!” And whether you’re a “haha” or “😂” kind of person, Smart Reply will improve over time and adjust to your style.

Express yourself with photos, emojis and stickersChat is more than just text, so we’ve created a rich canvas for you to express yourself in Google Allo. You can make emojis and text larger or smaller in size by simply dragging the “send” button up or down. Make photos your own by scribbling on them before you send. And we’ve worked with independent artists and studios around the world to create more than 25 custom sticker packs, because sometimes a “sloth riding a pizza” says it all.

Meet your personal Google Assistant
In Google Allo you’ll also be introduced to a preview edition of the Google Assistant. With your Assistant in Allo, you can have a conversation with Google — ask it questions and let it help you get things done directly in your chats. You no longer need to leave a conversation with friends just to grab an address, share your favorite YouTube video, or pick a dinner spot. Just type @google to bring your Assistant into any group chat. And of course, you can also chat one-one-one with your Assistant in Allo.

Here are just a few ways your Google Assistant can help in Google Allo:

Make plans with friends. You can easily move from discussing dinner with friends to making plans for the night, right in your chat. Just add the Assistant to your group chat and ask for movie times, local restaurants and more. You can also research travel destinations, flights and hotels together with friends.

Get answers. Get the latest info on everything from news, weather, traffic, sports, or your upcoming flights status. Ask the Assistant to send you daily updates on the information you care about.

Have some fun. Ask your Assistant to share that funny YouTube video or play games with friends right in your group chat -- for instance you can compete to guess a movie title based on a series of emojis.

The Google Assistant is the next chapter in a journey Google has been on for many years to assist people in their everyday lives. We’re starting with a preview edition to show you just one way that your Assistant will work for you in chat. Over the coming months, your Assistant will be available in more Google products, working seamlessly throughout your day at home or on the go. The Assistant will initially be available in English, with more languages coming soon.

Chat in Incognito mode
We take privacy and security seriously in Google Allo. All chats in Google Allo are encrypted using industry standard technologies like Transport Layer Security (TLS). But we went a step beyond this and we created a mode within Google Allo called Incognito(h/t Chrome). When you chat in Incognito mode, messages have end-to-end encryption and additional privacy features like discreet notifications and message expiration.

You can also message friends who aren’t yet using Google Allo through SMS or, for those using Android, app preview messages.

We can’t wait for you to say hello to Google Allo! We’re beginning to roll out Google Allo for Android and iOS, and the app will be available worldwide in the next few days.

Editor's note: This year, we're celebrating 25 innovative Community Impact student projects across the globe that solve community and health resource challenges with science. While we're featuring the Africa regional finalists below, you can read more about all the finalists' projects on the Google EDU blog.

Through the Google Science Fair, we've invited today's brightest young minds to answer an important question: how can they make the world better through science, math, and engineering? We received thousands of extremely impressive answers to this question from over 107 countries this year, and we can’t wait to announce the winners later in September.

Before that happens, though, we want to recognize the projects that aim to solve tough community challenges like providing clean drinking water, keeping people safe from natural disasters, and fighting droughts. This year, we'll be giving not just one, but five regional Community Impact Awards: one for each top project that focuses on fixing a difficult resource problem across North America, Latin America, the Middle East & Africa, Asia & the Pacific Islands, and Europe.

Rolin (15) of Cameroon is passionate about science and wants to modernize his rural community, which is located 20km from the capital of Yaoundé. In rural locations like Zamengoe, where he attends school, Rolin shook his head to still see so many people trekking miles to charge their cell phones. Even worse, many locals are still forced to rely on dangerous and expensive oil lamps to light their homes at night. Seeking a solution to keep his community connected to power without breaking the bank or causing fires, he built portable solar kits that are simple to construct and cheap to make. He even trained people in his town to create their own kits so they'll never go without basic power!. He believes he can help more Cameroon communities enjoy energy safely while improving their quality of life with his new creation.

In Lusaka, Zambia, family involvement in local politics has made Mphatso (18) keenly interested in reducing poverty in his community. As Southern Africa struggles to recover from its worst drought in decades, farmers are seeing their crops destroyed due to El Nino weather changes, leading to famine for millions. Without crops, farmers can't make a living, making it harder than ever for them to pay for the farming supplies they need to keep their farms fertile and their families thriving. To help local farmers find low-cost, affordable solutions for pesticides and fertilizers, Mphatso investigated alternative ways of generating the supplies farmers need. He created a simple, portable production station that requires basic cooking materials like charcoal and local plant leaves from the ground. Based on his methods, Mphatso believes farmers can save hundreds of British Pounds in costs, saving ~50% on fertilizers and ~80% on pesticides to help them produce better, more abundant crops.

Kiara (16) lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, which like other nearby countries, is suffering from the worst drought the region has seen in over 20 years. Kiara believes that a critical solution to long term water needs is a special material that can hold hundreds of times their weight in water while stored within soil. Typically, these materials are man-made and filled with harmful chemicals that are both non-biodegradable and too expensive for local farmers to afford. Kiara found an ideal material that won't hurt the budget in the simple orange peel, and through her research, she created a way to turn them into soil-ready water storage with help from the avocado. Kiara hopes this low-cost material can reduce juice manufacturing waste while helping local farmers save both money and their crops.

Himanshi (17) and Richa (17) of the science duo 'Higgs Bosons' live in Nairobi, Kenya. The pair know that like Nairobi, much of Africa is dependent on unreliable hydro-generated power. Alternative energies are expensive and hard to access, leaving many Africans struggling with a poorer quality of life and health care. Dedicated to careful research and answering life's problems with science, the students designed a new way to create power using an advanced 'periscope-derived energy device. A new take on solar and steam energy, this device channels heat from the sun through a convex lens, intensifying the energy received and using it to create steam in a nearby reservoir. Higgs Bosons believes this easy-to-assemble, affordable solution could be the answer to energy problems for communities across Africa.

Tune into the Google Science Fair website on July 18th to find out which five young scientists will win their regional Community Impact Award! With the generous support of our partners, winners will receive mentors and scholarships to help them further their education and inspiring projects.

Chebet Mutai from Nairobi, Kenya had little digital knowledge when she attended a “Women, Technology & Entrepreneurship” event run by Google in 2012. But the stories she heard and skills she learned there inspired her to quit her job at a bank and pursue her dream of opening a fashion business. She used her savings to buy two sewing machines and rent workshop space, and she set up a business making leather bags and accessories. Today, her company Wazawazi (a combination of two Swahili words meaning “open mindedness”) employs 12 people at a fair wage, exports to countries around the world, and continues to grow.

By 2020 there’ll be half a billion internet users in Africa, presenting an opportunity for African businesses and digital entrepreneurs. Youth unemployment across Africa is high (35% in South Africa, 17% in Kenya, 13% in Nigeria) - developing digital entrepreneurship and creating new job opportunities for young people is critical to Africa’s transformative growth. But digital skills are still under-developed, making it harder for African economies to get the most out of the web.

To help close this knowledge gap, Google is today pledging to train 1 million young people in Africa in digital skills in the next year, as part of our contribution to growing Africa’s digital economy.

We’re supporting our partner, Livity Africa, to run two training programs: Digify Bytes, aimed at helping young people develop a digital career; and Digify Pro, a 3-month immersion program to develop digital specialists for jobs in companies or digital agencies. Today, we’re also launching digifyafrica.com - an online-learning portal that will house a range of digital skills tutorials and courses. Available to anyone in Africa, it’s been designed to be as “light” as possible to help people manage data usage.

In-person Digify bytes session in Johannesburg, South Africa

The Digify programs (which are all free) will provide tools & knowledge on subjects including building an online presence, creating content, understanding web design and user experience, social media and app development. A group of 65 Googlers from 9 different countries have helped Livity develop content, provide mentorship and, in some cases, deliver the training.

We’re also talking to a number of other potential partners across Africa with a view to scaling the digital skills training program and helping to reach even more young people in more countries.

Jobseekers at a Digify Bytes training session in Lagos

More needs to be done to support people in Africa to succeed in the digital world, and we want to be part of that. The internet offers huge opportunities to start new businesses and grow existing ones, and we’re committed to helping Africans make the most of the digital revolution.

The internet is a growth engine, and it’s for everyone. There’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur in Africa.